B027254 - PSYCHOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD (for elective activities only)

Italian

The course aims to provide theoretical and methodological knowledge about language as an elective means of constructing and sharing mental representations and about its contribution, from an interactionist point of view, to cognitive, affective and social psychological development throughout life. Particular attention will be paid to the contextual and pragmatic aspects of communication, in the light of individual differences and the social context of belonging.

The teaching material prepared by the teacher in addition to the recommended texts (such as slides, handouts, exercises, bibliography) and the teacher's specific teaching communications can be found on the Moodle platform.

TEXTS
- D'Amico S. and De Vescovi A. (edited by) (2013), Psychology of language development, Il Mulino, Bologna Capp.IV,V, Vi, Vii, VIII, IX

Monographic cores: Downloadable scientific articles on Moodle

1.Explain, discuss, tell: the psychological lexicon
Pinto, Giuliana; Primi, Caterina; Tarchi, Christian; Bigozzi, Lucia (2017). Mental State Talk Structure in Children's Narratives: A Cluster Analysis. CHILD DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH, vol. 2017, pp. 1-7, ISSN:2090-3987 DOI ONLINE access to the publisher.
Pinto, G.; Tarchi, C.; Accorti Gamannossi, B.; Bigozzi, L (2016). Mental state talk in children's face-to-face and telephone narratives. JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, pp. 21-27, ISSN:0193-3973 DOI
Pinto, G; Tarchi, C; Bigozzi, L (2016). Peer interaction does not always improve children's mental state talk production in oral narratives. A study in six- to ten-year-old Italian children. FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY, vol. 7, pp. 1669-1669, ISSN:1664-1078 DOI Pinto, G.;


2. Beyond words: symbolic-iconic communication

Bombi, Anna Silvia; Pinto, Giuliana; Cannoni, Eleonora (2007). Pictorial Assessment of Interpersonal Relationships. A quantitative codying system of children's drawings. Florence: Florence University Press, ISBN:978-88-8453-465-1 DOI ONLINE access to the publisher.


S. Lecce; A. Pagnin; G. Pinto (2009). Agreement in children's evaluations of their relationships with siblings and friends. THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, vol. 6 (2), pp. 153-169, ISSN:1740-5629.

Pinto G.; Bombi A.S (2008). Children's drawing of friendship and family relationships in different cultures. In: C. Milbrath, H.M. Trautner. Children's understanding and production of pictures, drawings and ar, pp. 121-154, Göttingen: Hogrefe & Huber, ISBN:0889373507.

3. Telling the world, telling about oneself: development of narrative-textual, oral, written and multimedia skills.
- Pinto, Giuliana, Tarchi, Christian, & Accorti Gamannossi, B. (2018). Kindergarteners’ narrative competence across tasks and time. THE JOURNAL OF GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY, vol. 179, pp. 143-155.
- Giuliana, Pinto; Christian, Tarchi; Lucia, Bigozzi (2016). Development in Narrative Competences from Oral to Written Stories in Five- to Seven-year-old Children. EARLY CHILDHOOD RESEARCH QUARTERLY, vol. 36, pp. 1-10.
- Pinto, Giuliana; Tarchi, Christian; Bigozzi, Lucia (2015). The relationship between oral and written narratives: A three-year longitudinal study of narrative cohesion, coherence, and structure. BRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY, vol. 85, pp. 551-569.
- Key, D. and Newland, R. (2020), Creating trauma narratives for young children. The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter, 36: 1-6.

In relation to the expected learning in the discipline, it is expected that the student
1. show the knowledge of the historical evolution of the cultural approach and the mastery of the knowledge inherent in the discipline, both theoretical-conceptual and methodological;
2. it shows that it has acquired a cultural reading key of human development knowing how to use knowledge and concepts and methods to analyze, interpret and evaluate the contribution of the cultural dimension to development in different ages of life;
3. make critical comparisons between the different theoretical models relevant to create an autonomous point of view on the problems of cultural integration and use knowledge and concepts to reason and argue autonomously and critically on the problems of the discipline.

Knowledge of processes and constructs studied by developmental and educational psychology. A basic knowledge of English, allowing the student to read some material in English.

The teaching will be mainly frontal type with the use of PowerPoint, movies and testimonials. Given the strong applicative value of the topics addressed, interactive modes, exercises and group work will be favoured together with the discussion of cases, which will show the application to the operational reality of the basic principles of cultural psychology. Students will produce in itinere, on a voluntary basis, but with significant evaluation for the final grade, a critical account of some of the topics covered by the course and any research experiences implemented.

The syllabus, the tentative calendar of classes, studying materials, teaching methods, type of assessment, program for attending and not-attending students will be presented during the first class.

For students attending the assessment of learning will be done through in itinere tests, the results of which will be valid for the whole academic year and will contribute to the final grade of the course.

The assessment of the student's preparation will be based on the understanding of the topics, the acquisition of the concepts and methodologies proposed and the ability to apply them autonomously and consciously.

Written examination in mixed mode: open questions and multiple-choice questions.

The written examination consists of open questions on the topics of the program carried out during the course to probe the level of mastery of the discipline and critical assimilation of its contents and a series of multiple-choice questions to detect knowledge of the most relevant and characterizing notions.

The final grade will be calculated through the average of the grades obtained in the two modules.

The course aims to provide theoretical and methodological knowledge about language as an elective means of constructing and sharing mental representations and about its contribution, from an interactionist point of view, to cognitive, affective and social psychological development throughout life. Particular attention will be paid to the contextual and pragmatic aspects of communication, in the light of individual differences and the social context of belonging.
As a monographic study we will examine: 1) The functions of verbal language and psychological vocabulary in the construction of the theory of the mind over a lifetime. 2) The communicative functions of symbolic-iconic language in the construction of personal identity and in the representation and interpretation of social knowledge.